WV-SEN 2018: Haunted Manchin

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Blankenship will bring great honor to WV. Glad to endorse this patriot

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Rofl...78% voted YES

https://www.twitter.com/MorriseyWV/status/977007877855612928?s=19

The don is unstoppable. Glad to see my fellow patriots choosing a real man of the people.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

BLAN-KEN-SHIP! BLAN-KEN-SHIP! BLAN-KEN-SHIP!

I WANT TO TAKE A TRIP ON BLANKEN'S ROCKET SHIP

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Hillary Clinton needs to attack Don Blankenship and say that GOP primary voters would be smarter if they voted for either Jenkins or Morrissey

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Be real guys. Blankenship is a criminal. Even if he gets a boost from Hillary, he's still a worse candidate than Jenkins and Morrissey (both of which I think beat Manchin).

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I think Jenkins is a strong candidate. Look at his announcement ad. And he's also attacking Manchin for taking big pharma money. He's doing a good job with the socially conservative & economically right-of-center angle.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I think Jenkins is a strong candidate. Look at his announcement ad. And he's also attacking Manchin for taking big pharma money. He's doing a good job with the socially conservative & economically right-of-center angle.

Jenkins is a guy who knows how to do a politics or two. But again, I feel he comes off as inauthentic and plastic, which is probably the worst thing you could say about a candidate in the year of our lord 2018. If he were such a good candidate (which, this may just be a reflection of how weird, small, and far right the actual Republican electorate in a Republican primary is in West Virginia) why isn't he trouncing Patrick Morrissey and Don Blankenship?

Then again this is the very same Republican Party that has nominated John Raese for how many countless races despite knowing he'd blow it every single time.

Tbf, that's because his campaigned is geared for West Virginia democrats who voted for Donald Trump.

WV primaries are closed so Trump dems can't crossover to vote for Jenkins.

Obviously primaries don't really produce the best candidate a lot of the time. Just look at all of the crazies that the GOP has nominated instead of perfectly good candidates that would win.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Andrew is back to trolling yet again lol

Knew he would relapse

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Hopefully some bad news for Jenkins here. His congressional district compromises well over 32% of the state's population, and yet just slightly over 26% of the registered GOP ballots are coming from his district in the primary so far. Hopefully this follows the narrative that a lot of the Jenkins base are registered democrats, of whom those democrats, few to none could vote for him in a primary. Let's hope this narrative is true, but the numbers are encouraging so far. Here is a doc I found with results updated on the morning of the 4th of May 2018:

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8f557e1c6ac0b5aa70dfd4c00/files/7130e4ce-e174-4f99-83d6-0e794c89961e/P18_EV_Abs_050418.pdf

Promising so far, but keep in mind there's only 50,000 votes so far. In 2014, there were 219,510 votes total in the primaries. I'd expect around 230,000 people to vote in the 2018 primaries.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

BIG

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Lmao, why the hell would he be surging? Do WV GOP voters want to ditch cocaine Mitch?

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BIG

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Lmao, why the hell would he be surging? Do WV GOP voters want to ditch cocaine Mitch?

I guess VW GOP voters want to stop Mitch McConnell’s ‘China family’

Lol. I still think Blankenship will lose by about 10 points in the primary, but if he wins... have fun Joe Manchin.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

FWIW, I talked to my uncle today about this race. He's from WV originally, is a strong Trumpist, and instilled in our family a deep hatred of Blankenship and his practices. He's rooting for Blankenship now.

Why? He's become so disillusioned with the hypocrisy of the FBI/DoJ in regards to how they handled Trump/Clinton that he's become convinced that Blankenship's prosecution may have been political the whole time. And while I don't entirely agree, I can't help but think that a) that kind of thinking is more than justified even if I disagree in this individual case, b) I think many West Virginians agree.

These people aren't dumb hicks. The relative in question here spends his days driving a truck, and he listens to NPR, C-SPAN, and the SiriusXM channels literally all day. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of Russiagate's timeline that I envy, as I've long lost track of what all has transpired. He and his octogenarian mother who still lives up there talk about this stuff. This story isn't being ignored by Trump Country; quite the contrary, they're following it far more intensely than the opposition, and their rage is growing stronger.

It's part of the reason why I think that Trump will be reelected and that the midterms will largely be a draw. I'm actually beginning to think that Blankenship can actually win, in the sense that if he can win over my Uncle of all people, than he probably can win over enough swing voters to win in general.

Another thing to take into account is that Joe Manchin is unpopular, especially since he shamelessly used a thousand year flood for a bunch of photo-ops and a trip to the Greenbriar. His approvals are starting to drop off dramatically, and I think his attempt to portray himself as the real populist in the race is threatened by Blankenship in a way that Jenkins or Morrissey would envy.

Of course Blankenship is a criminal coal executive billionaire and a complete fraud, but whatever. If there is anything I've learned about politics from observing and participating, its the economy message stupid! Trump is living proof that a proper message can overcome even the most odious character flaws.

I don't think Blankenship is another Roy Moore though. Roy Moore's scandals came out after he won the primary. I think Blakenship, like Trump, has already aired out his dirty laundry.

TL;DR: A bunch of anecdotal regurgitations of what my relatives up there are thinking and what the informal consensus in (at least their immediate) bubble is like.

Delusion is a hell of a drug. I can't imagine how detached from reality you have to be to support Blankenship. Then again, WV gop primary voters are the same creatures that nominated lunatic John Reese 3 times who collapsed each and every time he ran. I don't think they actually use their brain when voting in primaries.

Blankenship has a nonzero chance of winning... but it ain't much higher than 0%. Meanwhile Jenkins and even Morrissey are favored over Manchin IMO.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Clearly Blankenship is more electable than Jenkins because something something establishment evil swamp something.

It's crazy just how deluded people can get when they think basically everyone is their enemy, and that the only people they can support are the people who are the fringiest of lunatics.

what is with the manchin is unpopular myth?

I'd say he is unpopular among GOP primary voters, but even among them, according to the Fox poll, he has a 35% approval among republicans LOL

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

what is with the manchin is unpopular myth?

It's not a myth. WVans have longer memories than the rest of America and he and his family have been scum for a while.

WV is the same place that consistently reelected Robert Byrd, elected Jim Justice, elected Joe Manchin despite hating Obama, and elected Donald Trump.

I don't think they care too much about ethics...

I'm sorry, but WV voters aren't secretly socialist. Lol

(Also, his approval is usually around 50% in every poll I've seen)

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Be careful what you wish for.  I'm not at all convinced Roy Moore would have lost if it was the standard Nov. 2018 election date and there were 5 or 10 other contested races on the ballot to drive GOP turnout.  And Trump did even better in WV than in AL.   Blankenship is an awful candidate, no doubt, but is he as bad as Roy Moore?

Blankenship, Jenkins, and Morrissey will pretty much all vote the same way.

If Blankenship wins, Jenkins and Morrissey would have won by more.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I have this strange feeling that I can't shake that while heavily losing, Paula Jean will do much better than expect, like low to mid 30s... I think Manchin might get O'Rourke'd in the primary, probably not that drastic, but I can't shake the feeling of a Swearingen overperformance.

Yeah I agree. She'll get the progressive vote + some conservative DINOs who just want to vote against Joe Manchin. That should get her to at least 20%, maybe 30%.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

So if Blankenship wins it basically proves that any idiot can win a GOP primary by being the only one to attack McConnell?

I mean, you need more than that. Blankenship was a well known figure in WV and had a ton of money to bombard the airwaves with.


The issue is, this suggests that Chris McDaniel has an opening in MS-Special if he attacks CHS for being handpicked by swamp rat Mitch.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Cocaine Mitch signals he will.kiss big Don's ring:

https://www.twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/993920602074468353

He can kiss Don's ring all he wants. This race was only slightly R favored w/o Don (imo), now it's clearly D favored even with the GOP putting a bunch of resources behind it.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Cocaine Mitch signals he will.kiss big Don's ring:

https://www.twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/993920602074468353

He can kiss Don's ring all he wants. This race was only slightly R favored w/o Don (imo), now it's clearly D favored even with the GOP putting a bunch of resources behind it.

Manchin would always have had an advantage regardless of the nominee

I don't know. I think Jenkins would beat Manchin by around 5 or so. But I may be overestimating how R West Virginia has become.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I was amazed by the number of people who seemed to genuinely believe that Blankenship would win the primary, even though it was pretty obvious all along that he wouldn't.

They WANTED him to win. Welcome to Atlas

I want Joe Manchin to be rewarded for being a good senator that works with both sides of the aisle. Why is that a bad thing?

Blankenship would make Manchin be reelected easier, and hopefully more moderates would run.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yeah, some DINOs finally switched parties. But there's still a lot of DINOs still yet to switch as shown by Paula Jean's primary %.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

JOE! JOE! JOE!

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He's not allowed on the ballot because of WVs sore loser law lol, but keep up the delusions dems

Republican leaning voters like Alabama Indy also support the patriot bipartisan member of congress Joe Manchin. He stands up against both parties and will work together with people for the good of WV

We must defeat polarization in American Congress

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Blankenship gets 3% at max, but I think he most likely only gets about 1.5%. Most people will look at him as a loser for running as, well, a sore loser who only got 19% in the primary.

Granted, that could be enough.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

The only time Morrissey is energetic is when dunken donuts has a buy 10 get 2 donuts free sale.